A new AMD CPU has been hiding in plain sight. It appeared in the Puget Systems benchmark database, and it's known as the Ryzen 5 7500F. That would be interesting on its own, but after appearing in that database, a Korean retailer listed (and deleted) the 7500F for a KRW street price in the $170 to $180 USD range. And it's supposedly due to launch on July 7.
The specs of the 7500F are open to speculation. Assuming AMD follows Intel's nomenclature, it's likely the 7500F lacks integrated graphics.
The Puget Systems entry was spotted by @harukaze5719. It was listed as part of a system containing an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 and Asus X670E-F Gaming motherboard. The 7500F system scores close to what a comparable Ryzen 5 7600 system does in the same Puget Bench benchmark, namely DaVinci Resolve.
The lack of an IGP is one thing, but what about the actual chip or chips under the heat spreader of the Ryzen 5 7500F? There are two options. One is that it's based on the existing single CCD Raphael design which includes the 7600 up to the 7800X3D. The other, and less likely option, is that it's based on a mobile CPU.
Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest
The Ryzen 5 7600 is a six-core desktop processor. It comes with a single eight-core die (with two cores disabled) and another I/O die, which includes RDNA 2 integrated graphics. This means the 7500F is almost certainly a downclocked 7600 with the IGP disabled, probably for yield reasons. AMD should have plenty of 12nm IO dies by now, and such a model makes sense.
AMD also makes monolithic mobile CPUs with up to eight Zen 4 cores, however, I believe it's unlikely the 7500F is based on these chips, given their powerful integrated graphics and the engineering cost of porting these designs over to the AM5 platform. It's also too soon to have a stock of harvested dies. My money would go on the 7500F being a downclocked 7600 with the IGP disabled.
Though the Korean listing has been removed, surely at the behest of AMD, Videocardz grabbed the spec before it was removed. The CPU is set to run at a boost clock of 5.0GHz, or 100MHz less than the Ryzen 5 7600. It will have the same amount of L2 and L3 cache (38MB total) and given the 7600 sells for $229 before discounts, a price of under $200 looks like being a safe bet, and loosely confirmed by the now deleted Korean listing.
A Ryzen 5 7500F will be a welcome addition to the AM5 family. The cost of buying an AM5 system has come down in recent months, in particular due to hefty DDR5 price drops, but the $229 Ryzen 5 7600 is still the cheapest model. At this time, no Ryzen 3 chips have been released. This makes the 7500F a particularly interesting budget gaming CPU. It might not be able to go toe to toe with the excellent Core i5 13400F, but the AM5 socket has several years of life ahead of it, and a drop in replacement Zen 5 or Zen 6 chip in the future gives the platform a promising upgrade path.
